Building regularization move in Chennai hits a roadblock

Chennai: Putting several thousands of building violators in further trouble, the Madras high court-appointed monitoring committee of the Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority (CMDA) on Friday sought more clarity and judicial sanction from the state government before regularizing buildings that came up before July 1, 2007.

The decision comes in the wake of a new set of guidelines announced by the government early this month, under Section 113-C of the Tamil Nadu Town and Country Planning Act, 1971, exempting unauthorized buildings from regulations. The authorities are yet to figure out how many buildings would, as applications continue to pour in for regularization. "It could run into several thousands," a CMDA official said.

"Agencies like Chennai Corporation, CMDA, the directorate of town and country planning and municipalities have begun preparations to condone unauthorized buildings for a fee. Now, they will have to stop all those moves till the HC gives them sanction," a CMDA official said.

CMDA monitoring committee member M G Devasahayam said the court had allowed regularization as a one-time affair. "After allowing buildings with violations that came up before 1999 as a one-time affair, it struck down attempts to regularize violations of buildings constructed before 2001 and 2002."

The fresh guidelines suggested covering buildings developed on or before July 1, 2007.